


you will greet yourself arriving

by shellybelle



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, The Haus, poorly researched hangover remedies, post-4.08, post-kegster vibes, slight NurseyCharms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 03:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17717327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellybelle/pseuds/shellybelle
Summary: The Haus has a different feel to it on Sunday mornings after a kegster, something strange and mystic occurring in those few quiet hours when darkness and floor-throbbing music gives way to early sunlight and calm.





	you will greet yourself arriving

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Nursey Week 2019 Day 1: Domesticity (and posted a day late because TIME IS FAKE). 
> 
> This is set post-4.08 but is drama-free. That said, we are #TeamNursey in this house. Come at me, bro.

 

The Haus has a different feel to it on Sunday mornings after a kegster, something strange and mystic occurring in those few quiet hours when darkness and floor-throbbing music gives way to early sunlight and calm.

 

Nursey’s not a morning person and never has been, but he always wakes early after a night of drinking. Before Dex moved out, he’d stay in bed until the need for water and caffeine drove him out, listening to the even breathing from the bed beneath his and hoping it might lure him back to sleep.

 

In the weeks since, between the dull throb that never quite leaves his arm and the silence in the room, he gives up early and gets out of bed.

 

He won’t admit it out loud to anyone but Chowder, Lardo, or Cait, because he knows that Bitty would give him one of those Disappointed Looks--god forbid Nursey make the best out of a shitty situation, right?--but he likes what he’s done with the room since Dex has been gone. Dex’s classic music posters and comp sci textbooks are gone, down to the basement and into his little bungalow, and Nursey’s replaced them with poetry prints and succulents, filling the empty spaces on the shelves with the books he’d had to put in storage. Ransom had come up from Boston to help Chowder dismantle the bunk beds and go back to the loft arrangement that Lardo had had before.

 

(Nursey had tried to help, but Chowder had pointed at Nursey’s arm, said “Do Not Even Think It” in his Goalie Voice, and Nursey had sat his ass down in the bean bag chair without argument.)

 

The space feels softer now, more like his bedroom back in New York. He’s twined string lights along the posts of the bunk, lets himself be more indulgent on his trips to Boston, picking up throw blankets and random pieces of decor that he tucks into the nooks and crannies of the room--a driftwood side table, a hand-painted lampshade over a ceramic body shaped like an elephant.

 

Even when they were at their worst, fighting every day and miserable, he didn’t _hate_ living with Dex. But something _good_ settles over him now when he comes home, steps over the threshold and into this room.

 

He rubs his eyes as he tugs a book off the shelf and drags a soft, warm sweater out of his closet, pulling it over his head. He’s lucky, he knows, that he doesn’t really get hangovers--the closest thing he gets is some tightness in his skin and tingling in his temples, a caress of a headache. Considering how hard he goes at kegsters, though, he knows he gets off easy-- _hey_ , he thinks with a smirk, indulging himself at the pun--most of the other guys end the night with their heads in one toilet or another (once, in Ollie’s case, the kitchen sink, and Bitty has never forgiven him).

 

The kitchen is still empty when he shuffles in on socked feet, wincing slightly at the brighter sun coming in through the windows. Ford always makes them clean up before they crash after a kegster, but the floor is still suspiciously sticky, and he’s learned not to venture anywhere barefoot for at least twenty-four hours.

 

It had taken him weeks to get the hang of making coffee with only one properly working hand, but he’s good at it now, going through the motions with ease and practice and only the rare wince. The anxiety he feels about his arm is only the occasional buzz in the back of his mind these days, a worry that he’s been off the ice too long, that he’s losing his edge, that he’ll come back to a team that doesn’t need him anymore. He’s technically banned from the gym as well as the ice, but he sneaks runs when he can, itching to move.

 

He’d adapted his yoga routine, too, managing to find a flow that let him move without putting pressure on his arm. Ford had caught him and chewed him out, but caved when she saw the frantic desperation on his face. Now she just supervised him, sometimes joining him, chirping through the whole flow.

 

(“You know the whole point is to _breathe_ ,” he tells her once, squinting through the sweat in his eyes. He’s out of practice, and not using his arms is _hard_.

 

“Breathing is fake,” she shoots back, “and I can’t believe you’re wearing a crop top.”)

 

The sun creeps across the room as he sips his coffee and reads his book, letting the warmth of language fold around him like a lover ( _the time will come/ when, with elation/ you will greet yourself arriving/ at your own door, in your own mirror/ and each will smile at the other’s welcome_ ) as the Haus slowly wakes around him.

 

Chowder comes down first, sleep-rumpled and mid-yawn, Cait trailing behind him dressed in C’s clothes and her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. “Coffee?” Farmer asks hopefully.

 

Nursey smiles at her and nods to the counter. “All set for you.”

 

She trills a happy sound and wraps her arms around him, nuzzling his cheek. “Best boy,” she mumbles, taking his book out of his hands and climbing into his lap. “Best friend.”

 

Nursey grins and looks at Chowder, who’s pouring two mugs of coffee. “On my way to steal your girl, C.”

 

“You don’t have to steal her, I’ll share,” Chowder says, easy and fond as he comes back to the table. He slides a mug over to Farmer, who takes it without bothering to leave Nursey’s lap. It’s a joke between them, the mutual attraction. None of them will act on it and they all know it, but there’s a warm safety in the knowledge of it, the awareness of where the boundaries are.

 

“What were you reading?” Farmer asks sleepily, lifting her head off Derek’s to sip her coffee.

 

“Derek Walcott.” Nursey wraps his arm around her waist and shifts her so that the bony part of her ass isn’t digging into his thighs. “Oof,” he says.

 

She flicks his ear. “Shush.”

 

He smirks and picks up his coffee.

 

Ollie and Wicks trickle in next, draped half over each other. Ollie goes for the coffee, but Wicks slumps right over the fridge and starts fumbling for his usual mixture of hangover remedies, tomato juice and raw eggs and other weird shit he finds on the internet that Derek has stopped asking about. Bitty trails in a few minutes later, in a sweatshirt that can only be Jack’s based on the size, his hair a ruffled mess. He gives everyone except Nursey a fond pat on the top of the head, squeezes the back of Nursey’s neck instead-- _I love you but for the love of god please stop touching my hair_ has finally, thank goodness, sunk in--and surveys Betsy II for a thoughtful moment before turning back to the table.

 

“Okay,” he says. “Pancakes and bacon?”

 

Five coffee mugs go up in an immediate toast.

 

Within fifteen minutes, the kitchen is full of the smells of frying oil and maple syrup, a separate plate of turkey bacon set aside for Nursey while Bitty dishes out enough pancakes to feed a small army.

 

When Dex walks in, still bundled in his SMH sweatshirt and sweatpants from the cold basement, Nursey’s trying to convince Farmer to get off his lap and sit in her own chair--or at least sit in Chowder’s lap--so that he can eat with both hands. Nursey glances up in time to see Dex hesitate at the doorway, his eyes going to Nursey’s as the magnetic force between them snaps into place the way it always does, either drawing them together or forcing them apart, nothing in between.

 

It’s been tense between them since Dex moved out, and Nursey feels, more than he hears, the shift in tone in the room, the sudden awareness of the potential for conflict. Farmer curls her fingers into the hem of Nursey’s sweater. The mug in his hand is still warm.

 

Dex holds his gaze, inclines his head. His mouth is soft.

 

Nursey lifts his mug. “Hey,” he says. “There’s coffee if you want it. Don’t steal my bacon.”

 

Dex’s shoulders relax. “Turkey bacon is an abomination,” he says, and nods at Nursey’s mug. “Want me to top you off, since you’re stuck?”

 

An olive branch, one moment at a time. “That’d be great.”

 

Dex takes his cup and refills it for him, fills another for himself and takes the chair next to Nursey, cementing Farmer’s spot in Nursey’s lap. Chowder smiles at them, warm-eyed and indulgent. Dex hands Nursey his mug. Across the table, Wicks lets his head slump onto Ollie’s shoulder, his hand loose around his cup of tomato juice. Bitty flips a pancake and croons along to Ariana Grande.

 

The light in the kitchen is warm and the room smells of syrup and home, and Nursey smiles.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> What do I even ship these days??? NurseyDex? NurseyCharms? WHATEVER.
> 
> Poetry quoted is "Love after Love" by Derek Walcott. Vibe of Nursey's room is based off of [this amazing piece of art from Jenna/@angeryginger](https://angeryginger.tumblr.com/post/182670083232/brilliant-sensitive-handsome-student-athletes-be%22) which is just *chef finger kiss* perfection. 
> 
> Thoughts? Feels? Headcanons? I'm on tumblr: @geniusorinsanity.


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